Libro

“The Devil and Tom Walker”
The story of “The Devil and Tom Walker” written by Washington Irving is an archetypal story. The story happens during the puritan times in New England, near Boston. In the early eighteenth century, this was one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Washington Irving describes the landscape and swamps that were familiar to the area’s inhabitants.These descriptions made Tom’s meeting with the devil on the old Indian fort, show a deeper description of the American context. The region was populated by Puritans, Quakers, and Anabaptists. New England was settled by Puritans in the early seventeenth century. The Puritans were a group of Protestants belonging to the Church of England who believed that the Reformation had not fully eliminatedCatholic influence. The fundamental doctrines of the Puritan religion were based on the Bible. According to their faith, the Bible told what was right and wrong. The Puritans believed in one truth and thought that other religions were wrong. Tolerating other religions meant tolerating error, was unacceptable in Puritan thinking. This is evident in a scene in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, where Tom talksof persecuting Quakers, an action that he believes will improve his own spiritual development. Puritans believed in the Devil and witches. They were convinced that American Indians worshipped the Devil. Irving shows this belief in “The Devil and Tom Walker,” when the Devil appears to Tom Walker on the Indian Fort. The setting in ¨The Devil and Tom Walker¨ affect on the story´s conflict, charactersand resolution.
The setting of the swamp in New England has significance in the story´s conflict. In this place a religious setting is shown when Tom, the main character, decides to give his soul to the devil. While walking in the woods, Tom gets very tired and decides to rest for a while. The sun was descending from the sky “It was late in the dusk of evening when Tom Walker reached the oldfort, and he paused there awhile to rest himself”(292), but he wasn´t a man who would get easily scared. Suddenly, he heard a gruff voice speaking to him and it was the devil. This setting is where the conflict starts because it is when the devil makes the offer to Tom. At first, Tom doesn´t accept to sell his soul, but when he returns home everything changes. He tells his wife about it, so sheheads out to the woods to look for Old Scratch. After a few hours she wouldn´t return. Tom went out and looked for her, but he only found her apron hanging on a tree. The Devil had killed his wife. “Tom seized the checked apron, but, woeful sight! Found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it” (296). This made Tom change his mind about selling his soul because now he wouldn´t have to share thepower with his wife. Later on in the story, he sells his soul. This reflects the religious setting by showing how people during this time had the belief that selling their soul to the Devil would bring them power and fortune. Today people no longer believe in selling their soul to the Devil. This belief was mostly common during the Puritan Age, time in which “The Devil and Tom Walker” takes place.The historical setting in “The Devil and Tom Walker” cause different effects on the characters. During the Puritan Times, people believed God worked their daily lives, they sought to avoid the pitfalls of sin in their lives through an emphasis on constant self-examination, they were educated and taught their followers to be rational thinkers and they believed in effective business practices.This story shows this action when Tom works in Boston as a usurer, becuase he believes everything good in life is money and power. People think he is a great person and start to see him as a very powerful man. In the setting of the forest, where Tom´s wife got killed, Tom thanks the Devil “He even felt something like gratitude toward the black woodman, who, he considered, had done some kindness.”...